You've Been Requisitioned (Ilta)

[Roland]

As Ilta prepares to hit the training ground a sergeant walks in and shouts "Constable in training Kveld! Your presence is required at the training ground immediately hop to it!"

The man escorts Ilta to the training ground but leaves as they get to the entrance. Upon entering the ground Ilta would see a familiar man in a black leather coat, eyes obscured by a large black hat. The morning sun made his already very apparent pallid complexion stand out even more. In one hand he was carrying a wooden staff and in the other was what appeared to by a thin sheet of stone, by his feet was a pile of swords and across from those were a variety of wooden javelins.

Upon seeing her the man would call "Good you're here, come on over." Roland says as he gestures for her to come over. He sets down the stone with a grunt and takes a step back.

"Your name is Ilta Kveld right?" He asks looking at her form under his hat. Then with a wave of his hand he gestures to the objects on the ground. "During the ball you did something that was quite interesting. I would like to hear about and see the extent your magic and abilities." He explains as he waves his hand and a sword suddenly is lifted off the ground and floats over to Ilta, hilt first.

"What kind of things can you do to that with magic?" He asks curiously.

[Deleted]

Ilta looks at the sergeant confused as he says her name. Well, there probably wasn’t another constable in training Ilta Kveld. However, she can’t imagine what she might be needed for. Not unless their current smith caught fire in the forge, and they needed some kind of replacement. “Yes, sir,” she nods, following him across the grounds.

She didn’t know that much about this guard, but with the piles of weapon around, she expects him to tell her to fix them all. Honestly, some of the swords could use some work. The purpose of the sheet of stone alludes her though. She walks over as he gestures to her.

Oh, the trick at the ball. He was curious about that earlier too. “Nothing as interesting as levitation, sir.” She grabs the sword by the hilt with her right hand and taps the flat edge against her left palm. Sending her senses out to the blade, she can hear the hum of the metal. Twisting the notes, she bends the blade until she forms a spiral with it. Cutting it short, it weakens until she is able to crack off a chunk of it. “I can do that with stone or metal. It requires touch. Or to touch a metal or stone object that is touching the stone or metal thing you want to change, break, or strengthen. The wall was connected to the floor, so that’s how I pulled that off. The distance and size of the ballroom floor made that more difficult to pull off than this. If I had failed the first time, I wouldn’t have been able to do it a second time probably.”

She puts the sword down and picks up another. A decently sharp one. “As for the extent of what I can do, there is that, and…” She focuses inward on a series of notes. Her skin hardens into stone, and she runs the blade across her left hand. She then holds up her left hand to reveal not a single scratch. “This.” Turning her flesh back to the way it was, she shrugs, “And that’s about it.”

[Roland]

Roland was pleasantly surprised by the magic display from Ilta. He looked at her with keen interest, his amethyst eyes showing from under his hat. He strode over and picked up the broken piece of sword to examine it. "This is actually pretty impressive, don't get my wrong it's not the showy kind of magic that would impress crowds like my stone lion trick, but a strong basis in the fundamentals and a very practical application." Over all he seemed to approve of her magic. The university had far too many kids who thought the ability to throw a fireball made them an indispensable asset to the kingdom, but to Roland a spell with several simple uses was far more impressive.

"To be honest, I would consider this a much better grounding in practical magic application that the majority of mages at the academy have." He explains having suddenly become both very animated and talkative now that the subject was magic. "I have a theory that there are three true components to magic: Capability, Casting, and Practicality." He explains beginning in on magical theory.

Though as he looks at her again he cuts off and scratches the back of his head. "I'm sorry about that, I'm actually not very good at...people." He admits and then seems to calm down, as he does a feeling of intensity seems to settle in around him as if a weight once again was placed upon him. Not a burden per say but a purpose.

"Anyways, I call you here for two reasons, the first is that as of now the royal guard has requisitioned you to fill it's headcount needs." He tells her holding up a document that amounted to saying that Roland had the ability to act with the authority of the royal guard and had the right to requisition any personnel or supplies he saw fit in order to maintain the safety of the kingdom. He rarely use this document because if the king heard about it he might put limits on it. He'd given it to Roland several years ago for a special mission and Roland had kept it.

"The second thing I want from you is for you to teach me what you just did. Both spells preferably." He requests simply.

[Deleted]

Ilta’s somewhat surprised by the compliment. She didn’t call herself a mage when her education was mostly family tradition and a few things she managed to teach herself. “Thank you, but, I mean, it’s pretty simple. I prefer being more practical than showy. Good thing I hate crowds, I guess.” Honestly, she wasn’t really expecting anyone to be curious about her small selection of spells. Magic seemed more abundant here than back home.

When he mentions the mages academy, she shakes her head. “I wouldn’t know. Never been, sir.” Now she had to wonder what exactly mages did all day if it wasn’t being useful. If a person better trained in earth magic couldn’t manage what she just did, what was the point of all that education?

Maybe they spent all day talking about theory as Roland was doing at this very second. The theory behind magic wasn’t something she found herself contemplating, but Roland seemed to have a lot to say on the subject. Respectful listening, she’s fairly happy when Roland stops himself before diving into a lecture on the nature of magic. When he admits he has trouble with people, Ilta smiles. That was something she could understand. “People are difficult. Magic is simpler.”

Ilta looks over the document for the requisition. “I certainly don’t have an issue working wherever the guards feels I am most fit. Also, this seems more eventful than doing drills all days.” She already protected the king before, and she wasn’t even getting paid then.

The second request takes her off guard. She wasn’t entirely sure how to teach someone either of those spells. The way she viewed metals and stones had to do with sounds, and was difficult to explain to people. However, her father described it in colors, and he managed to get his points across somehow.  “I would be willing to try, but I might be a crap teacher, sir.  However, if you don't mind me giving odd explanations for things, when would you like to start?"

[Roland]

Roland could see that Ilta was a bit confused by the fact he said her magic was more useful than what many mages at the academy could do. He tries to think of how to explain this, in truth he'd rank her in the middle of the pack, but given her lack of formal training that was still pretty good. He closes his eyes for a moment and then explains. "When I said what you can do is more useful than what a lot of the mages at the academy can I do not mean that you area a stronger mage, or that your spell is inherently more refined or complicated. What some mages, very powerful ones forget is that magic isn't just the greatest primal display of force. For a guard the ability to quickly and efficiently maintain the equipment at the guards house can save the lives of those who go out on patrol, but a mage who can incinerate or petrify people at a glance can only hurt or confine the criminals. For people to realize how wonderful Caster's gift to this world is magic needs to be used constructively." He explains.

He nods as Ilta explains she doesn't really care where she is assigned. "Alright, that's good to hear, well there are a few things you should know then. First as a member of the royal guard you are outside of the normal chain of command. You will report to me and a few of the other royal guardsmen while you are learning the ropes, but after that you will become a hand of order and the crown. When we do not have specific assignments Royal guards have a lot of freedom in how we keep order. We only report to Mysteria and the king, which functionally means we only report to Mysteria unless directly in the king's presence." He explains.

Once he is done with this explaination he looks at the swords and picks one of them up. "Well even if you haven't done much teaching, let's give this a try shall we?" He asks with an encouraging smile.

[Deleted]

That explanation makes a bit more sense. Figuring out how to petrify or incinerate someone, while impressive, wouldn’t actually find much use. However, Ilta now wonders how many guards could do something like that. “I completely agree. Practicality and versatility were some of the things that always found important when it came to learning magic. A single spell should be able to be applied in a variety of circumstances.”

Her change in duties didn’t sound too bad. Reporting to the king and Mysteria directly… Ilta still didn’t know much about this king, but he seemed relatively well-liked from what she could gather. Protecting him seemed worthwhile. However, it’s unclear exactly what she would be doing in this role. “So I’ll be operating somewhat separately from the rest of the guard? And if you don’t have any specific assignments, how do you normally serve the crown?”

She looks at the sword for a few seconds and tries to figure out how to explain what she wants to say. “Alright. The first part is casting your senses into it. From there, you should be able to manipulate as you want. Honestly, metal is easier to start with. More uniform than stone normally.”

[Roland]

Roland nods as Ilta seemed to have grasped the relevant points of his explaination around magic. "Just to let you know less than half of the royal guard are actual mages, the king doesn't really like magic though he understands it isn't something he can ignore or oppress." He explains, with an unhappy look on his face, "that being said from what I've seen Noku is a better king than most so my general advise is interact with him as little as possible."

After this he is surprised to hear her ask what he did when not on assignment. "Well I grew up as a member of the city guard, so I usually just go help them out, they've always got more problems than they know what to do with, especially with the fated running around." He then seems to trail off as a vein began to appear on his forehead, "well that's what I used to do, but ever since mysteria, that witch, started giving me all her paperwork. Now I feel likes glorified clerk." He growls, obviously unhappy about his current duties.

Though he calms down suddenly and miraculously as Ilta explains the way to do the metal magic. Well it sounded simple enough, he'd learned the become one with your sword thing during martial training and he was used to flowing mana and life force into objects when he animated them. Roland focuses on extending his senses to to blade and becoming one with the sword, making it a part if his circulation. If Ilta had any ability to sense mana she would suddenly be able to tell that a truly staggering amount flowed into the sword, several mages worth in fact.

As Roland attempted to manipulate the blade it suddenly exploded into shards. Roland coat rose up of its own accord and protected him from the shards and he looked back up at his pale cheeks turning slightly red.

[Deleted]

The fact that the king isn’t perfectly ok with magic puts Ilta a little bit on edge. According to Alex, this was where the Rose Court started. However, she did want to see that the world didn’t go down the route. She makes a mental note to be careful around the king. “With the exception of the Winter Ball, I tend to stay away from nobility. I don’t think that’ll be too much of an issue.”

“There’s paperwork to fill out?” Ilta asks. She didn’t really join the guard to sit at a desk. She doubted she had the patience for it. If that was all her new assignment was, she was going to begin regretting this decision really quick.

He seemed to have the hang of the it at first. He certainly looked focused. She feels assure that Roland would pick this up in no time. However, as it explodes she is forced to rethink that. “Shit… alright, I don’t think I explained that well.” She runs her right hand through her hair, thinking for a few seconds, before picking up another sword. “Ok. When you send your magic through it, how does it feel? For me… This is going to sound weird. Everything has a noise or a song or a hum. And I focus on that. The notes it make. Then I change it. My father described it as colors. It’s different for everyone. To change things, it takes a gentle touch. Counter-intuitive, I know. However, it’s like music. You pluck the strings. You don’t pull or else it will break.”

[Roland]

"You won't need to worry about the paperwork, I've been put on it because I had the pour judgement to reveal I am actually a pretty talented clerk apparently. Just make sure to misspell some words on your reports and leave out some small unimportant details and you'll be fine." He tells her now preoccupied as he looks at another sword.

He looks at her a bit surprised when she asks him to tell her what it is like for him. "Well I dunno entirely I am trying a few things, but as a whole magic for me has always been about my will interacting with the world and the magic within my body extending out as a function of my will." He explains and then thinks about this for a bit. "That time it felt like I was continuing to force more and more water into the sword until it couldn't take it anymore and then shattered.

He examines the blade for a bit and then looks up at Ilta. "Can you explain to me what makes a sword strong when you craft it?" He asks "What makes a sword sturdy and sharp and how does a smith go about enchancing those?" He asks her curiously though before he tries anything else he takes his boots off and places his feet on the hard packed earth then closes his eyes. Again he focuses on making himself and his will one with the ground. Then with a sudden burst the earth under his foot come out from under him and he ends up falling into a hole he created. The earth that was in the hole had become rushed forward and suddenly Ilta found herself standing on a mount.

"Ugh, now this is just undignified." He says laughing like a kid who had just gotten a new toy. There was genuine mirth in his voice and as he climbs out of the hole he looks and Ilta with a sense of excitement, wondering how she would explain the smithing he'd asked about and wanting to try it.

[Deleted]

“Thanks,” Ilta says for the advice on intentionally messing up reports. However, she probably would have accidently done so due to boredom and inattention to the task.

Ilta thinks on his explanation. It wasn’t too much different from what she did. Sending one’s will out and manipulating it. Still, it tended to be less… violent when she did it. “I guess… hmmm… gentleness. Less force. It really doesn’t take much if you aim for the weak spots in any metal or stone.”

Ilta rubs the back of her head. “The strength of the sword is determined somewhat by the strength of starting material. Impurities will weaken them. Honestly, any metal will have some, and they’ll make up the weak points. You can fold the metal if it has a lot of impurities, but you can’t do that too many times. You’ll lose some hardness. You need to also keep in mind that a blade requires a certain amount of flexibility. Too stiff and it will break. You mix softer metals, which are at the core and sides, with harder ones, which lie at the edge and tip. So it should flex without deforming. Certain metals and mixtures can hold an edge better than others. Then, what is the blade being used for? That determines the shape that it needs to be effective. After that, there is quenching and tempering to the desired hardness and softness. After that, you can polish and put on an edge. Its ability to hold an edge depends on the metals you used earlier a bit. There isn’t really a perfect blade. There are good blades that are good fits for their wielders. It’s all about finding an optimal balance to suit its purpose.” She closes her eyes, “There is no perfect song. If I use magic to do this, I’m making order out of a bunch of noise. Giving it shape and making all sounds flow together.”

“Ai’s fucking tits!” she yells as Roland makes a giant hole in the ground. However, she can’t help but laugh with him, seeing that he is ok. “You seem to have the breaking part down then.” When he gets out of the hole, she unsheathes her personal sword, Fang, and hands it to Roland. “Here is what is capable on the opposite end. My father never really explained to me how he managed it, but it is unbreakable. I can do the same, but not to quite that extent.”  

[Roland]

When Ilta tells him he has the breaking part down Roland can't help but blush a little. "Unfortuntately I haven't been trying to break anything. Maybe I'm just using too much Mana, I'm using less than it take to animate something, hmm though I suppose I should use what would be required to break it as a better test." He starts thinking out loud. Though when Ilta hands him Fang Roland looks at it with interests.

He closes his eyes and tries to become one with the sword. After a brief moment he hands it back to her "...that sword...doesn't like me much." He says with a slight frown, it was a shame the sword was interesting and a real feat of magical craftsmanship. "The earth magic is not only filling the blade but creating a seal to prevent other mana from entering, it's really stable object." He says admiring the blade, it would have quite a bit of symbolic use if he wanted to draw on it for a ritual. Ilta's dad must have been a pretty good mage, or at least a master at this brand of artificery.

When he hears Ilta's explanation about the metal and impurities he suddenly seems to understand something and picks up another sword. "So it's no just about trying to make it harder huh?" He asks curiously and then focuses on the sword again, instead of trying to force the sword to become stronger he probed the blade, using what he saw from Fang as a guideline. He takes a deep breath and then as his eyes begin to glow he looks for the differences in the mana's conductivity. After about a minute he stops staring at the sword and begins to think.

"I found the impurities, this is harder than it looks. Trying to use precision on something so fragile isn't easy, I feel like the castle wall would have been simpler." He says as he tries to focus on moving the impurities or seperating them. After another minute or so the blade suddenly falls about into three distinct pieces, but s small ball of slightly differently colored metal rolls out of the pieces.

"I think the steel's a lot more pure now at least. That'll make the sword better when I fix it right?" He asks as he picks up the pieces and seems to bond them together simply. Roland's magic seemed to be good at simple tasks like breaking or fusing things, but anyone who could sense mana would be able to tell that he had used a ridiculous amount for the result he was given.

"Hmmm, this is pretty interesting. Why is stone harder? You don't need to be nearly as delicate with it. Isn't just forcing it to do things a much simpler process?" he asks, Roland's actual affinity seemed to lean more towards rock and dirt than metal.

[Deleted]

Ilta looks curiously at the sword when it says it doesn’t like him. “It’s a sword. I’m not sure it has very many opinions at all. While I’m very fond of it, I’d be surprised if it returned that.” She always saw the sword a piece of her and her family ever since her father passed. It was the only thing that she had remaining of him, or any family member, at this point. Everything else was lost 1000 years in the future. “I remember when it got made. It was the… I think, the twenty-third try. Lots of failed prototypes before that. I speculate that it might also change a bit to fit the situation that it is. How it could possibly know when to change and when...” Ilta trails off and shrugs. “At least, it is always stays a longsword.”

She sheaths Fang, and watches Roland pick up another sword. “No. Well, not unless that is what you want.” She takes a step back as he starts to work with the blade, but once it looks like he isn’t about to blow it up again, she comes closer again. “You get used to it. Hear what matters. After awhile, it becomes second nature. The castle wall isn’t really simpler… If one part of it fails, there is another part to hold it up. So you end up looking for a lot of faults. And it’s massive, you kind of spread yourself thin working with it.”

She smiles as he the blade falls apart in a non-explosive way. “Pretty good. You got rid of some slag.” Ilta takes one of the balls of metal and looks at it. “We’ve got some tin now, it looks like.” She shakes her head, “Honestly, that was a bit of a simplification. Alright. So the weak spots are the bit where things aren’t dispersed. Large clumps of things that aren’t iron. It’s ok for certain things to be present so long as they are dispersed throughout, and the steel remains an ideal portion iron and carbon. In addition, some metals don’t work well in combination while others do. Tin’s just no good though,” she says, holding up the ball of metal. Putting that down, she picks up another one, “Nickel… that’s not necessarily a bad thing so long as it is uniform throughout.” She points to another ball, “Honestly, I’m not sure how to dispose of that one. That’s arsenic. Arsenic isn’t good, and it doesn’t play nice with nickel.” She looks at the remainder of the blade, “It might not necessarily be stronger. The nickel was a purposeful addition while the other two weren’t. Also, with that many breaks, you’ll be drawing it quite a lot during reforging. The resulting product won’t be the same as the original even if you didn’t remove some of the metals from it. It’s shape has been permanently altered. But, if you focus on it with all the pieces, you can maybe bring it all back together, so it will be the same shape at least.”

As he asks about the stone, she hops into the hole, grabs a rock and sets it next to the stone slab.  Ilta says, "Remember when I said everything is noise?  Rocks are... there are a lot louder, and I don't understand them as well.  It took me awhile to figure out what to focus on and what was worth ignoring.  Basically, there are more factors and I understand less of them.  That stone slab has been cut and polished.  There are less things to think about when working with it.  That random rock I picked up.  It's made of many things."  

[Roland]

As Ilta talks about how the swords was just a tool, a useful one and an important one for what it represented to her Roland shook his head. "No, while I cannot speak for a normal blade magical items have a sort of will, well I should probably say the phantom of the creator's will. Spells require intent to cast so magical items often times carry and maintain that intent even after the caster is long gone. So even if the sword cannot make a conscious decision to reject me the fact that it repels my magic makes it poorly attuned to me, and thus the sword by definition doesn't like me." He explains.

As Ilta explains the metal work to him he nods and listens studiously and with keen interest. "I guess I will need to learn more about how different metals interact if I want to take full use of this, but I think I've got the overall concept. You're magic reminds me a lot of fast alchemy." He mentions as he examines another blade and picks it up, This time he focused on the impurities and then after half a minute tried to combine them and spread them in the iron. A very painful screeching sound could be heard as metal was wrenched apart then compressed together. He looks down at the sword and frowns, this was going to take some work.

Though when Ilta jumped into the hole he tilted his head to the slide slightly. "Why does it matter if the rock is made of many things? Is there a reason you only have to move one thing at once? It seems much easier to simultaneously apply the spell several times and move a wide variety of things. He place a hand on the ground and the ground beneath Ilta begins to rise, lifting her slowly out of the hole.

When she emerges she would find Roland covered in sweat and panting. "That was harder than I thought it would be, I don't think I will be able to do this quickly without more practice." He says having cast several variations on the spell at almost the same time to compensate for the various mixes of the stone.

[Deleted]

Ilta looks at the sword again. Did this thing really hold the will of her father? In some way, she could be literally carrying a piece of her family even this far away from home. If so, it did make it even more precious of a thing. The thought of all this makes her sentimental, but now wasn’t really the time for that. Somewhat awkwardly, she looks down and crosses her arms, “Yeah, I suppose that does make sense. I’ve actually never seen anyone else fight with this sword, so I couldn’t really say who it would be attuned to. Funny thing is it wasn’t even meant for me originally.”

Alchemy. Her magic did have something in common with that art. “I can’t say I have anywhere close to that much control. It’s entirely possible that this is how it started and got simplified along the generations. I can’t speak much about the progenitors of my clan though. They seem like more myth than real people at this point.” They certainly had stories about them, but there were enough versions and discrepancies for her to take them with a grain of salt.

“Like I said, the problem with it, for me, is I can’t really make as much sense of it. Let’s say, you have to pick a suspect in a line-up. That’s easier than picking a suspect in a crowd of moving people, right? It’s kind of disorienting and distracting,” Ilta explains. That was perhaps a better metaphor that music.

She thinks about the idea of recasting and moving several items at once. “I guess you could reapply the spell several times. It’s not really something I’ve tried. I mean, I need touch everything to move it, so I’m limited by how fast I can make contact with the item I intend to change. It makes quick casting like that more difficult than with spells that only require you to be able to see an object.” She let’s herself get lifted out of the hole. “That was really good though for your first time doing this though.”

[Roland]

As Ilta mentions she was no alchemist Roland shakes his head. "No, Fast Alchemy is just a nick name it's people with the ability to change thing's basic compositions, you're magic might not quire be that, but it's pretty close." admits and then looks at Fang, it really was a masterpiece.

He smirks a bit at her suggestion regarding the crowd and finally comes to realize the difference in what they are talking about. "Well using your analogy, whether it's the line or the crowd, I guess my magical solution is round them all up and sort things out later." He says realizing this is why he was able to do the larger actions of her magic while being unable to perform the basic parts of the spell.

"Well I guess this is something to work on, what about your other spell? The one that hardens your flesh? How do you do that?" He asks her curiously.